Having lived through the busing experiment when it was first implemented I can tell you it failed miserably. Outside of elementary school, where black students and white students mingled and where black students got good grades and were engaged in every aspect of school, it all crumbled in middle school and high school. Black teenagers started to see the world as it saw them, with contempt and distrust. This led to a withdrawal from situations that where academically challenging and subsequently the students of color closed ranks, didn't befriend white students and saw the whole process as an empty one. History has proven that Biden got it right.
34
It was never them sitting next to each other, it was more equal opportunity of education but for some reason old white people can never handle that. We are so tired of your generation's problems.
10
Beyond Bank of China private equity transactions, it seems the Biden's and Bulger's share quite the history.
1
"This has already been litigated by the American public" in two national elections.
7
What is it exactly that the New York Times has against Joe Biden? Every headline printed about him, mostly on the front page, is negative. That's not true about any other candidate.
This particular article does a good job of explaining the many complications befogging the subject of the history of busing, but one would not benefit from that explanation unless one read it from beginning to end
"Mr. Biden’s position is not a shift: He has never opposed voluntary busing."
50
Biden said, it is insulting to say that black kids get smarter by rubbing shoulders with white kids. That is patronizing the blacks. Busing was never meant to make black kids smarter, it is meant to accelarate the process racial integration. His bipartisan skills is based on shift whichever the direction the wind blows. Simply put, he is not qualified to be president, unless we want Trump in a different avatar.
2
Where is your in depth reporting on Harris' record as prosecutor and attorney general?
37
Maybe the Times secretly wants Trump to win again .. that's why they keep it up with the busing articles. An issue that is 50 years old & almost no one cares about. It's actually irritating.
41
Well, part of me is all for articles like this that continue to beat a dead horse. You make Biden a lot less scary to Republicans. I wonder when you'll get around to something in this century. Oh, wait. That would be a pie in the sky Medicare for all plan vs Biden's plan to strengthen Obamacare. Or, in your words, "shore up Obamacare." (So 2015, Mr Biden). Judging by the amount of space you give it, Biden's position on busing is at least as important as the crimes against immigrants on our southern border, right? And at least as important as his attack on the four women of color who dare to disagree, right? I'm for Biden first and foremost because he is the only Democrat in this hate filled era who can beat Trump. Keep up the good work, NYT!
13
This kind of smear job is exactly what happened to Hubert Humphrey in 1968—one of the fiercest progressives in the Senate during the '50s, a champion of civil rights and labor, Humphrey was pilloried by the anti-war left for not being sufficiently critical of Lyndon Johnson. Result: Democrats abandoned Humphrey, and we got 8 years of Richard Nixon.
23
Busing in the 1970's, is this the new "but whatabout Hillary's emails" of the 2020 election? Busing long ago lost any political relevance, and has nothing to do with the critical issues we face this year, and in this century.
24
Dems....you’re doing a great job re-electing trump so far. Keep it up! Fight an ideological battle from 40 years ago and tear down any credibility you have with centrists (aka battleground state voters).
24
How curious that shortly after Kamala Harris used all of her prosecutorial acting skills to attack Biden for his stance on busing, she reveals that she actually agrees with him.
What a fraud.
But then, lawyers do those things, don't they?
She owes all of us a big apology for pulling a fast one.
However, it did boost her poll numbers which has been down there and that is all it's about, right?
35
Pick the best chance of getting a Democrat in the White House,not whom you may want! It's that important!
11
I saw no mention in this opinion that Biden or anyone else offered a plan to ensure each neighborhood/rural school in our country would be resourced the same. That is, the facilities and equipment used in poor neighborhood/rural schools would be funded and maintained at the same standard as wealthy neighborhood schools. Nor did I notice a plan from Biden and the anti-busing politicos to ensure salaries, benefits, training and re-certification for teachers and principals would be uniform across the nation. Like most things in this country it is all about the money — who pays and who benefits.
That said, the use of housing integration legislation, as recommended by Biden, as an alternative to integration by busing was a red herring.
Since the 70s I have been following how our country has educated its children to meet the challenges they will face in the world and I have concluded that the richest nation in the world cares little about educating its children. Check any international education effectiveness measure and you will find the US is mediocre or a bottom-dweller when compared to other industrialized nations. Shame on all of us.
When it comes to education, housing, national elections, human rights, etc. claims that "states' rights" must prevail offers segregationist politicians, judges, state legislators and mischief makers of all stripes a wonderful tool for arguing in favor of the status quo.
8
Time to say "goodnight" Joe.
1
Given where we are right now and predicting that “things” are only going to get worse, shouldn’t democrats be focusing (ha) on something more useful?
6
For gods sakes NYTand commenters just please stop rehashing the 40 year old news on Mr. Biden! We get that you do want want him to become the President. I do not understand why, but it appears so from the many negative articles in your newspaper .
Do you really believe that our first blaack President would have Biden as his VP? Biden's record, all 40 years were carefully vetted and yet Obama wanted him, bussing history and all.
As of this date the former VP is leading in the polls. Is the goal to tear the front runner down? The Democrats need to win the midwest states that trump won in 2016. I believe VP Biden is a favorite here in Michigan. I am voting for Joe Biden. He is a great man, flaws and all.
29
The idea behind busing was that it would level the educational playing field by transporting mostly minorities from their neighborhoods and schools to those of mostly white and more prosperous neighborhoods. Wanting to provide a better education to minorities is admirable, but busing has always been a controversial and problematic method of achieving it. Being against busing does NOT automatically equate with being racially insensitive or blind to the problems which STILL exist today between different towns and cities across America. In fact, some might say that focusing on the ROOT causes of poverty without the inconvenience and risks busing children many miles away from their homes would be the best way to go. Those claiming today and without historical context that Biden is insensitive to racial issues and against more equality is an outrageous slander and misreading of what really happened.
13
I’m worried about 2019. I couldn’t care less about 1972. Stop bringing things up that happened almost 50 years ago, for which we have absolutely no context. This is completely and totally irrelevant.
17
Curious as to why a stance taken 40 years ago in a different political climate is being made the lynch pin in discussions of Biden's viability as a candidate. Sorry, but this smacks of character assassination. This upcoming election is not nor should not be about whether is was a good thing to bus kids back in the 70s. Time to move on and focus on what needs to be done now and in the near future to solve today's problems. The existential threat of climate change puts all social justice issues behind that issue as far as many of us are concerned.
20
@Barry Fisher--It created a soundbite for Harris and she can hawk a few t-shirts for her effort.
In the long-run she hurt herself with it. Essentially, busing is a relic of the past. It was not popular then and would not be popular now. She doesn't get it.
As Biden noted it is a topic that doesn't lend itself well to a TV debate.
11
Didn’t he ever do anything liberals like? Then why don’t we hear about it?
2
Just some comments to Times' editors. I am already tired of reading about VP Biden's history with busing. I do not know anyone who cares about this issue. The current administration is in federal court to urge that the entire ACA be declared unconstitutional. That argument/decision affects everyone in the country. Please provide context (including in HEADLINES) in articles on democratic candidates' health care plans. Each of them wants to salvage the ACA, with some building on it and others calling for single payer eventually. Trump is calling for it to be declared unconstitutional with nothing to replace it. This is what citizens want clarity on--not busing positions of 30-40 years ago. Plus, Trump is a racist and trying to overtly shape the Republican Party in his image. Their silence on his racist tweets is all the evidence one needs. This should be headline material and in the first few paragraphs of news stories.
I love the Times and read it everyday. Your political reporters and editors have to up their game, in my opinion. Trump tries daily to manipulate all media; please don't fall into his trap.
Keep up all your great reporting efforts. This critique is intended to be helpful--from a longtime reader!
14
"Mr. Biden would reinstate Obama-era policies designed to increase the diversity of our schools."
I won't use the "H" word, but President Obama HIMSELF sent his daughters to PRIVATE high schools. Isn't that WONDERFUL...!
11
The Dems and media are doing Trumps reelection work for him. Biden is the only candidate that has a shot of retaining Dem voters turned off by the AOC Marxist Squad. I voted for Hillary. I voted for Obama 2x. I vote Trump if anyone other than Biden is the nominee.
5
Let's be honest here - Sen. Biden "became the anti-busing crusader" for one reason only: that was what his constituents wanted him to do. Many working class white people in some parts of the country were opposing busing and that's what they wanted their elected politicians to do. This may be an unfortunate part of the historical record but it is what it is.
You can choose not to vote for Biden in the democratic primaries because of this. But the fact is, there is no way to get rid of Trump without winning back some of the white working class people who had voted for Obama, then voted for Trump in 2018. They are the children and grandchildren of those people who opposed busing back in the 70s; they may also have views on race more backward than those of a Harvard or Berkeley University professor of race studies... But it's a matter of math - there's not enough woke non-white people and super-woke, over-educated whites in the coastal cities to outvote Trump base. You need to talk to those Obama-Trump voters if you want to ever get rid of him. And you may as well nominate somebody who knows how to talk to them.
6
I may be wrong, but this is what I saw in Harris’ speech
I saw a planned ambush to an elder college, an acting-out, thirst of power, division
Which valuable qualities have great leathers?
22
@Bal That was what I saw too! We don't need a trumpy-manipulator as Democratic presidential candidate to further divide the party and the country.
8
Some objected to school busing on the ground that it was social engineering.
What's the obvious example of social engineering? Segregated schools. Children were used as pawns to maintain the white supremacy social system, forced into schools based on skin color---by law, and custom.
The cooperation in this by elected officials reinforced and legitimized the public violence after integration was finally started, after the Court finally made a decision in line with our Constitution.
Much of the white public had been conditioned to think that going to school with blacks who were inherently inferior, was a great insult to them. This is shown by the photos of students screaming insults at the 1st blacks to integrate Little Rock. Local govt had supported them. Pres Ike had to call out the national guard.
And many whites also would have objected if govts had started to budget tax more money to improve black schools to levels of white schools. Most white officials wouldn't even have suggested it. There was no way out, given how racial politics was set up.
It's most unfortunate that as we're trying to defeat the most racist president in many generations, yet the highest polling candidate, who was VP to the 1st black president, has attitudes full of contradictions. We don't need this mess in 2020.
2
If Harris thinks it's wrong for Biden to have opposed federally enforced, nation-wide busing, she needs to say so.
And then she needs to say what she'd do differently if President.
After the debates, she backed off fast from saying she'd implement such a plan. Which begs the question, how does that make her different from Biden?
I happen to like Harris, but this was a foolish move on her part. And the pile on of Biden is starting to look like another media push for a woman in the White House.
We need to focus on getting a Democrat in. If it's Biden, fine. Harris, fine. Anybody, fine.
11
When Trump's malfeasance makes it easier to recapture the Senate and the presidency for the Democratic Party, we can always count on the New York Times to make it more difficult again.
12
Hey, NYTs... knock it off! Biden is not anti-busing... he was against a federal mandate to impose busing on the local level.
The exact same position as Kamala Harris.
14
The problem was REVERSE BUSING where white kids in good public schools were to be sent to low performing [mainly minority] schools.
The theory was that white parents would then put pressure to improve these low performing schools if their children had to attend these low performing schools. .
Theory did not work.
White parents pulled their children out of public schools and sent them to private schools.
Is it racist to not want your child sent to a low performing school where children who want to learn are physically harassed by children who do not want to learn.
What is racist are affluent parents who support busing OTHER peoples' children into low performing schools while sending their children to elite private schools and at the same time refusing to provide the resources to improve low performing schools.
Cut down class size. Easier to control a class of 15 than of 30-40.
Increase teacher salaries to attract and retain good teachers.
But this costs money that you do not want to spend educating OTHER peoples' children.
8
Reading this column and the focus on "busing" policy by Joe Biden from the New York Times does not surprise me. They are a Media company. They are looking for a story or if there isn't one just create it. In their opinion there is traction in this story and Kamala Harris showed them the way.
If the New York Times has a "dog in this hunt" it apparently isn't Joe Biden. I don't know yet if it is Kamala Harris (may be) but they love stirring the pot and making their paper part of the story and part of the problem.
Maybe this isn't Joe's time. Who knows. But it isn't because of his stance on "busing" that's for sure.
I view this as an Independent not linked to either the Democrat Party or the Republican. I consider myself a "swing voter." I have voted Democrat most of my life but this group of 30 or so candidates is a bit too much to take. Each one trying to "out left" the others. I personally believe the only candidate who might be able to beat Trump is Biden.
NY Times: Do you really want to bring Biden down? Is this the way your paper survives with another 4 years of Trump and large sales of your scathing stories about him?
Wouldn't be a bit surprised.
10
Why is busing the conversation? It is a waste of time and being used to take down Joe Biden. I'd like to hear our candidates talk about boosting poorly resourced schools and making sure the needs of children are being met at their neighborhood school.
I realize that integration is beneficial to all students, but when it requires sending your child to a school with less resources than in the town where you pay taxes or hours of travel to attend a so-called better school, it seems like integration shouldn't be the priority.
We need to get the appropriate resources to schools in low-income areas. Wouldn't most minority parents prefer to send their kids to a really good school close to home, even if that meant it was racially/ethnically homogeneous?
7
You got to love how this newspaper is trying to slam Biden, the only moderate Democrat left. Do you actually think that by supporting the radical left you win an election? There is zero chance of that happening. Trump is our president for approximately six more years, get used to it.
7
I have both American Medicare and Quebec Health Insurance. I am 71 and have never used the American Medicare which is nothing but a scam foisted on America and its citizens.
Insurance is supposed shared risk and when it comes to risk there is no risk in not insuring that segment of society over 65. The utter stupidity of men and women like Joe Biden who believe in Medicare only for people over 65 is appalling. It is fundamental in understanding why 40% of Americans cannot deal with an unanticipated $400 bill.
Joe Biden is sincere but his sincerity is based in not understanding America and the world's problems.
America is in need of vast numbers of new Americans and more than the entire population of Central America is needed for new economy that is needed in a country whose fertility cannot keep up with the labour demands of the next decade. America needs the skills that only inculturation provides. I understand the desire for borders but survival demands acknowledgement that America needs vast numbers of new Americans and they aren't coming from Norway or even Spain and Italy.
I have been commenting over the last decade on Samuel Johnson's Taxation No Tyranny sent to the American Congress in 1775. Two hundred forty five years later Johnson's fears are still being realized as America listens to the elements Johnson warned about. Johnson was an intellectual giant a conservative of integrity and wit and today's GOP are knee jerk Whigs.
https://www.samueljohnson.com/tnt.html
2
We learned that busing doesn't work. Learned that neither the urban parents or suburban parents were happy to see their kids spend hours a day in transport away from their neighborhoods. We also learned that people that had saved and bought in 'better' neighborhoods to send their kids to good schools were angry to pay taxes that their children no longer benefited from.
In essence, we learned that busing was a very bad idea from intellectual think tanks and politicians that wanted to conduct social engineering changes across the country. Unintended consequences? No, I think intended.
However, I'd like to know why sending minorities to majority 'white' schools is expected to raise the minorities education levels. And, if that were true (not), why we decided that whites bused to low performing schools would make those better. Seems a racist idea where whites are assumed to improve the performance of blacks/hispanics.
Lastly, in many states, mine included, the schools taxes collected are distributed across the state. So, at least in those states, if education was about money invested, we'd have awesome schools in ATL. We don't.
The answer isn't money and it's not busing. What will improve low performing schools? Why do we have so many, mostly isolated to larger urban cities? Maybe it's the home.
8
"Mr. Biden argued that housing integration — which would take much longer to implement than a busing plan — was a far better way to desegregate public schools."
This is the capstone of Progressive thinking on housing issues today. Will anyone give Biden credit for foresight?
9
By the way, I forgot to mention that President Obama had sent his daughters to PRIVATE SCHOOLS and the LEFT did not say anything about that....
9
So what?
2
Excuse me!? I did, but that’s somewhat beside the point. I recognize that there are legitimate reasons for a President’s children to go to a private school. In any event, I’ll take President Obama on his worst day over any day in the trump administration. Trump’s an incompetent, childish, mis- or under-educated fool who has no concept of what democratic government is all about.
4
@Devin
Is that the best example for the president to show to support public high school...?
President Carter sent his daughter to public high school, so why can't/shouldn't President Obama...?
4
Busing was, and is, a failure. It didn't work. Learn the lessons, let it be and move on. And it's not just me saying this. I believe the support for busing among black citizens is extremely weak.
The objective should be a decent education for all, not some social enginerring fantasy. There is nothing to be gained by revisiting failure, doing the same thing and then expecting a different result. Like the saying goes, that's insanity.
9
So the Black and Spanish children cannot do well unless they are in the White schools, but why is it that the Asian children (as in NYC elite high schools) do not have that problem....
15
Joe Biden is NYT's candidate. This is the PR piece for him.
4
This issue is so divisive. In my birthplace of Pontiac Michigan in 1971 the whites idiots from NAG protested in the streets and K.K.K. dynimited and burned brand new school buses to prevent what they called forced busing. It was horrible. It spoke of the violence and sent a message of more to come. To the black communities and many whites the burning of a fleet of school buses was eqivilent to
a city-wide cross burning and surely not a peaceful protest. And these racist protest brought about and made careers for white nationalist republicans like L. Books Patterson: one bad apple for sure. Many years of Republican rule took hold and dozens of Democrats lost there seats & influence. Even the fairness of the state courts was tipped to a far more conservative bent and many police agencies in the suburbs became violent abusive & racist when applying the Laws to “outsiders and liberals.”
Now all the public schools are more segregated than ever and charter schools and vouchers are in vogue so white parents can send their children to all/mostly white schools.
As such, why then are Democrats even bring up busing as a modern day issue. Surely we are all for equally good schools and against inflaming more discord, hatred and violence. That is what Trump and the Republicans want. This nation is trying to heal and move forward. We elected the first black president ever with Obama and he selected Biden as his running-mate. A good match for Obama but not for Harris or the Times. Why?
2
I am beginning to wonder whether some writers in the NYT are in the pay of the Trump campaign. You insist on focusing on things that Joe Biden said or did almost half a century ago, when the world was a different place and Joe Biden somebody who was at the beginning of his learning curve. You completely gloss over the great things that he did in the recent past, including being a loyal Vice President to our first African American President. Joe Biden may be the only hope that we have of ending the catastrophe. Do you really think that Harris or Buttigieg have any chance of being elected? Do you realize how offensive the anti-western position of the likes of Ocasio Cotez and Omar is to many of us highly educated liberals? Please, stop this pointless wrecking job. You are beginning to look like a glossy reflection of Fox News.
10
As a Democrat, I could not care less what Biden's stance is on busing. It's ridiculous that we're even discussing it.
23
This is the perfect example of the “lesser of two evils!” Biden denies his racism and distorts the negative impact of his actual Congressional record. He’ll lock you up with a smile. Trump stirs racial hatred like it’s his brand. The problem with the lesser of two evils is that they’re both evil. Period.
3
SCHOOL BUSING...?
I am sure "you" want your child/ren being bused to the schools with the "WONDERFUL" young lady who licked the ice cream, or the young men and women who were "SHOPPING" at the North Face store in Philly, or the young adults who were "SHOPPING" at the Walgreen...?!
Yes, I am sure you do.
And when I say "YOU," I am referring to you, Kamala Harris...!
7
It seems the NYT is heavily involved in Biden Busing. Of the Throwing Under kind.
24
Well I guess it does prove that Biden can work with racists. Working with Trump should be no problem. I am sure they can find common ground between them.
3
Let me understand this, almost 45 YEARS AGO Joe Biden took a stand regarding busing. Since then he has worked for us in Congress and has been re-elected many times. Then Barack Obama chooses him to be his Vice President basically saying if anything happens to me I think Joe Biden would make a great President. Now we have Kamala going back almost 45 years ago and basically calling him a racist. Are you kidding me? I know you want to win, Kamala but you are huring the Democratic Party. This is not the way to win.
25
What? "Mr. Biden DECLINED to be interviewed for this article"? He didn't want to face questions on this important racial issue for the nation's leading paper---yet he wants to get enough votes to beat the most racist president of modern times?
He's full of contradictions. They're hard to keep track of. This has "crystallized the political and civil rights crosscurrents swirling around Mr. Biden." to use the articles elaborate phraseology.
Gosh, will I have to vote for this contradictory, manipulative candidate in order to dump trump for 2020? I'll do it, but I hope the voting line won't be too long. How much can we stand?
Btw, this article is much, much, much too long. Cut it down, give readers a break. So much to read, on and on. And on.
Editor, be sure and print massively long about the issues of the 1960s and 70s to see if you can drive a big wedge in the Democratic Party — or has the Times switched to “Democrat Party.”
Has the Times ever put this much ink on a story about Trump— which the Times can’t seem to all a “liar”?
Maybe it’s time for your paper to do a new 100-day expose on Hillary, no?
MYbe
4
I'm not a Biden fan, but if he's the one to beat Trump, so be it.
Times change. Mores change. People can change, too.
And, hope abides.
6
Biden opposed forced busing for sound reasons. The vitriol ( described in this article) directed toward black kids who were bussed into white schools was unconscionable and deserves rebuke. But the real resistance among Biden’s constituents and others was to the opposite, of busing their own kids from schools a block away across town to schools that were dysfunctional and sometimes hostile. All parents put the welfare of their children before anything else, this is a fact of life, and this includes black parents, many of whom, once they became middle class pulled their kids out of neighborhood schools that were dysfunctional and moved to schools in the suburbs. Maybe selfishness was at play here, but it certainly wasn’t racism. And the complex array of causes that go into dysfunctional schools in poor neighborhoods, including issues of class and culture , should not be reduced to the racism of white parents, or even lack of resources. Black kids deserve as much a break in life as anyone, and it is important to talk about overcoming de facto segregation of American schooling, and giving them access to the best city schools-- but telling parents they have to send their kids from home to schools they see as dysfunctional, and if they don’t want to that just shows how racist they are is not going to achieve anything but division, resistance, and the election of republican representatives.
13
@arden jones great summary. Better than mine
1
Well the New York Times had decided it needed
to stop Biden from being the Democratic Nominee
so it quoted those voices who most opposed what
Biden did in terms of ending mandatory racially driven busing.
Will it now do a follow up on Senator Harris and her
long time affair with Willie Brown when he was Mayor
of San Francisco ?
Or how she handled notorious cases
when she was the Attorney General of S.F. and California ?
Perhaps the Times can provide information of what the
Public Schools were like where Ms. Harris grew up in
Berkeley.
The money spent on mandated busing would have been
better spent on building new schools, renewing older schools.
As for the Federal Judges how many of them sent their
children to the Public Schools, let alone ones that required
their children being bused two hours a day ?
10
If busing is in fact beneficial to people of color, there must be some sort of transaction occurring, in terms of knowledge, learning, etc. So, to sell the busing concept to whites who oppose busing-- and break down the historical opposition to it-- one might explain to them how they benefit from busing. Once this is done, I think the opposition will rapidly fall by the wayside.
People forget that mandatory bussing was highly unpopular among both white and black families at the time. Biden's position was quite reasonable in that context, and I think it's inaccurate for Harris to imply that he was an opponent of integration on those grounds. In general he has been a strong supporter of civil rights and integration. I think mandatory bussing would still be highly unpopular today if reinstated, and that this will prove to be a losing issue for Harris.
10
As a product of 1970s school busing, I am quite aware of it's drawbacks to minority students - so, I have no problem with Biden's opposition, per se...
However, I do have problem with Biden's opposition that did not include alternative(s) that made schools 'equal.'
3
Sorry. If anything, this is going to be a plus for Biden. Very few people, black or white, were in favor of FORCED busing (e.g., against the will of the community) in the 1970s, nor are very many in favor of it today. Other than a few people on #WokeTwitter, Biden's views are being accepted as wise then and wise now. And last time I checked, we vote for president, we don't look at the number of Likes his last tweet got.
15
Great comment. The hand-wringing SJW set on Twitter is not the real world, and in the real world, as you noted, busing was toxic. It's not a vote-winner. Forget it.
9
Back in 1974, when I was an avowed Marxist revolutionary, I and my comrades denounced the Fed Government Boston busing plan as a calculated effort to put white working class and Black working class people at each others throats. A year later saw that this was a harmful delusion that said Black people didn't have a right to fight for decent education, and I made my apologies And in a far fainter tone, Biden based his opposition to busing as making white working people the enemy So Biden,coming from a southern state (Maryland) made a big mistake along with a lot of white people who saw themselves as generally not racist but bussing was another matter. Now that Trump has crystallized virulent white racism noone can deny the existence of 20? milliion whte people who fit the description of hard core white racists. So Biden made a big mistake in the seventies . He needs to further come to terms with his mistake, in particular with representatives in the House. But at this point, the Trump campign is out to destroy Biden's right to run for President. And as usual, most of the mass media is happy to broadcast again and again Biden's mistake, because they alway choose sensationalism and bigger profits.
Kamala Harris did not "attack" Joe Biden. Senator Harris said she was a product of school busing, she liked the busing experience, and she benefited from busing. She said Joe Biden's praise of working with segregationists was hurtful to her, just as there are countless Democrats who would be "hurt" if Nancy Pelosi were to "work with" Donald Trump.
This in no way, shape or form constitutes an "attack" on Biden.
@sthomas1957 Kamala Harris not only attacked, she manipulated! and then flip-flopped since.
6
I find it annoying when people say, because they disagree with something in the newspaper, "I'm canceling my subscription!" But when you realize that the entire paper has a dominant view that is misguided, at best, it's difficult to want to continue giving it money. That's how I've begun to feel about The Times.
I see little diversity amongst reporters and editors. Having good intentions and übersmarts isn't enough. The certainty that most employees of this paper have that they are on the Right Side of History, is fabulously frustrating and makes them seem quite blind to those who have more nuanced views.
The Obama years made me more left, and the Trump years have made me more right; both for the same reason: the idiocy of the actions and rhetoric of the president's opposition, the ease with which they radicalize. Fanaticism becomes a test of who can out-radical whom, the creation of a self-sustaining radicalization process, which entails suspicion, paranoia, witch-burning.
What to do about states and their citizens who don't behave the way we'd like is difficult. But much leftist thinking reminds me of the social-engineering aspirations, and eventual effectuations, of revolutionary socialists in early-twentieth-century Russia.
Christine Rosen put it thus: "[For today's progressives,] an abstract principle is embraced, and all of history is made to conform to it." Using a sledgehammer from D.C. to kill local liberty and 'solve' a problem surely cannot always be justified?
3
Biden did right. Busing harmed schoolchildren and disintegrated inner-city culture. It was a failed policy and we talk about it now only because Kamala Harris was able to use it to attack Biden.
15
Not that it matters, but I opposed busing then and oppose it now, as well as the idea that government ought to impose "racial balance" in public schools, no matter how residence patterns upset it and parents of all races oppose coercive efforts to achieve it.
"De facto segregation" is a fraudulent oxymoron.
But that hardly matters now, does it?
I will vote for Joe B in the primaries if he is still in the race when my state's turn comes up, though that ancient history is certainly not why.
I will vote for him because, like most Democratic voters, I am not at all a socialist and am a pro-capitalist progressive in politics though not personally a capitalist.
I like his plans for health insurance and his approach, generally.
In any case, I will vote for whatever Democrat gets the nomination, since even the worst among them is better than any Republican.
And it's pretty much always about the lesser evil, anyway, from any voter's point of view, isn't it?
5
Kamala Harris got a blip in the polls by attacking Joe Biden on busing but probably at the cost of a chance to win the Democratic nomination. Outside of California, she is still basically an unknown. Before the public had any chance to get to know her, she attacked a candidate (Biden) who is personally liked by people of all political persuasions on a decades-old issue that was legitimately controversial even when it had relevance. She has come across as harsh and mean-spirited and it will be difficult for her to reverse that first impression.
9
Maybe I should vote for Joe Biden. He's the odds on foreign policy expert among the candidates by far, and I almost feel with all the overt age discrimination coming out of the millennials, if they want tribal then all the boomers should vote for old as a reprisal.
I wasn't going to vote for him, but now that the New York Times has declared open war on Biden, Buddhism, and Face Recognition, and I'm two out of three, I feel like my own paper is at war with me, so maybe I should join the fight and vote for the candidate they are so intent on knocking out of the race before a single vote is cast. I believe in freedom of the press, but I also believe in democracy -- the right of the electorate to choose, not some editor in an office in New York City.
4
What I get from reading Biden's comments here is that in the 1970s he saw how forced busing was going to turn many whites against liberalism because, while they might support integration, they didn't want their children to be bussed away from them to a potentially inferior school far from their home. He was right. Resistance to bussing and resentment about affirmative action are two of the biggest reasons many in the white working class left the Democratic Party from the 1970s to the present. While busing might have been worth a shot, the political costs (for both Democrats and the black community) of trying to force busing far outweigh the potential benefits. Biden was right to suggest that the real problem was (and still is) obstacles to residential integration. Makes me more likely to vote for him.
7
This was 45 years ago. Half the 2020 candidates were not even born yet. History is relevant but this topic is not black and white, and it was a long time ago. I think we should be focused on today's issues and who we think Biden is and what he stands for now. Not that we disagreed on his stance from before most of the current candidates were born or much less could vote.
2
Has anyone else noticed that the New York Times’s news coverage of Joe Biden has been almost wholly unfavorable? (It reminds me of the Times’ conduct in covering Bernie Sanders in 2016. The only difference is that the Times attempted to ignore Bernie before it began running negative news stories.)
The Times is entitled to advocate for its preferred candidates on its opinion pages, but the lack of balance in its news coverage is very troubling.
I shouldn’t be able to discern the Times’ views on Joe Biden from reading its coverage of the Democratic campaign.
6
Vice-President Biden passed muster with Barack Obama back when Senator Harris was supporting a policy in 2008 that required San Francisco to report undocumented minors to ICE (Google: "Kamala Harris supported 2008 San Francisco policy that reported arrested undocumented juveniles to ICE" at CNN.) I imagine both candidates would take moderately different positions on policy with the benefit of hindsight. The difference is that Biden has multiple decades of experience in shaping policy and leadership in that nasty, brutal, and contradictory place called the real world, and Harris has only ever served in a super-majority in California or in loud opposition in Washington, and then only for a few years. I'll take multiple decades of experience and Barack Obama's approval every time.
9
This doesn't feel like news anymore, this feels like the news media artificially keeping an issue in discourse which isn't even relevant to the upcoming election. Unless you truly believe that Biden's stance on the topic of busing 40-something years are worthy of impeaching his presidential credibility in 2020.
We all heard the exchange between Harris and Biden, and the inartful followup on both sides, tacking on to the general discussion what our political system is willing to consider to be a fair impeachment.
If the NYTimes insists on keeping this now passed controversy alive, can we get a new story about the Kavanaugh hearings, Deutsche Bank's connection to Russians/Trump/Justice Kennedy, and a Benghazi/Clinton update?
You're destroying the one person in our Presidential politics who, for better and worse, is actually trying to and maybe capable of finding some type of consensus to move forward as a nation. The winner-take all approach of Trump and a growing segment of Dems will only harshen the political (counter)reactions until we arrive at the conclusion that a 50 state union is no longer tenable.
9
Two takeaways from the article: Joe Biden should have been using Rogaine in his 20s, and if dead men don't wear plaid, neither should aspiring politicians wanting to be president someday.
What are we talking about here? That Joe Biden is a racist because he disagreed with a policy? Is that what his record of service proves over 40 years? I think not. Plenty of people hated busing as a solution, not least of all because it left the worst offenders, mortgage lenders, politicians starving urban schools for funds, real estate interests off the hook. The burden of equal education was placed on lower middle class whites so wealthy whites could just send their kids to private school. This also provided politicians with a convenient wedge issue to put white vs black, just as it’s being used now. Fix unequal pay, banking, support all schools and leave busing back in the 70’s with mullets...
9
Before singling out Joe Biden, get all of the Democratic candidates on record to see who exactly supports broad, federally mandated busing. The truth is, none of them do. Kamala Harris certainly doesn't. Most people - Republicans and Democrats, black and white - do not either. The continued focus on this issue reeks of a kind of political hit job by which the media can erode the lead that Biden currently enjoys.
Get the other candidates on record on this issue and watch how fast interest in pursuing it evaporates.
8
Joe Biden and Black voters.
"A new Fox News poll indicates that Biden still holds a significant lead among Black voters. It's not just that Biden leads the South Carolina primary. It's that his Black voter support is even higher than his overall support. Biden leads among Black voters in the Palmetto State with 41%, while he's only at 25% among white voters."
Joe may have been "the Dems' anti-busing crusader" but it hasn't seemed to have cost him the support of those who were supposed to have gained the most from busing.
2
Mr. Sulzberger, Mr. Baquet,
A plea.
There’s no such thing, as we all know, as objectivity. The choice of which stories to report is subjective; of whom to quote; of what to notice. Can you think more carefully about what you choose to cover?
The most pressing issue in America today isn’t Joe Biden and busing.
Every day the Times affects the American narrative. At the Times today Trump appears exempt from continuing coverage of any aspect of his life. It’s one or two stories per subject and move on (as if you covered Watergate once a week). In the Times bubble, Trump is not the threat our finest minds tell us he is. Comparisons to modern dictators are forbidden; Ornstein and Mann and Snyder don’t exist. Your younger reporters sound shockingly ahistorical. The motto is ”this too shall pass.”
By the time it passes the Republic will be gone.
I read more in the Times about Biden and busing than multiple scandals enveloping Trump. I don’t see much about Trump weaponizing the federal government; I read little about the obviously larger story behind Acosta and the Epstein prosecution; about women who accuse Trump of raping them when they were children (the argument that one is anonymous and therefore can’t be covered is specious, as the Times reported repeatedly on anonymous Al Franken accusers); I see nothing about McConnell as what he is: the gravedigger of democracy; I see almost nothing about hackable voting software.
You’re failing us. Time is running out.
11
his defense of "local" decision-making over busing was code for continued segregation (NIMBY); and his defense of Tallmadge was and is unconscionable. Tallmadge was an unreconstructed racist. proof? see Tallmadge statements at:
https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10355/43502/PoosDesKanCit.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
Biden should recant his historical testimonials for Tallmadge and his ilk.
Biden needs to own this - and apologize unconditionally. that said, the U30 or U40 set needs to study American history and realize what battles for equal rights and integration were fought post-Brown v. Bd. of Educ. in the 50s, 60, and 70s, with some - but less than perfect - results.
by the same token, Harris's invocation of the issue for political gain needs to be put in its historical perspective too, and bears no comparison with the inner-city or Deep South integration vs. segregation experiences of black and white students elsewhere in the country. Berkeley was and is a special case due to the backgrounds of its unique and diverse populace.
You have to give Mr. Biden credit, he was right in opposing busing. It proved to ineffective and is no longer done today even though neighborhoods are still largely segregated.
4
There was court-ordered bussing, because white communities were not complying with desegregation orders on their own. In Nashville the plan was to comply one grade at a time over 12 years. The courts struck this down; the ruling was to desegregate immediately. Whites got even by under-funding public education for years, until Phil Bredesen, a liberal mayor reversed this, but neighborhood elementary schools were allowed to be re-segregated, the Black community seeing this as the only way to get adequate funding for these schools.
A better solution at the time would have been to compensate children/families for the extra time involved from bussing, those who volunteered receiving four year tuitions at State universities. Both whites and blacks would have taken them up on this.
Biden, given his age, may be volunteering beyond the call of duty in this campaign in opposition to the immorality of the Trump Republicans. There are other younger candidates willing to do this, and who are also aware of the pressing new challenges the U.S. faces, and are better equipped to lead. These would include Elizabeth Warren, who is an expert on financial matters, and Kamala Harris, who has excelled in all her elected offices. Both have wide support and know that healthcare is a universal right, and that Justice and climate change are the decisive issues of our time.
The new stuff from Trump reminds one of Baby Face Nelson in O Brother, defiant to the end as he is led off to the gallows.
1
Let's get real folks. Nobody, that is no one, favored court ordered busing.
4
We might as well extend Trump's access card to the White House until 2024 right now. The 70s school busing issue (including this article) and Buttigeg's LGBT issue (another NYT article) are things that are not important to most folks today. I've already made up my mind I distrust Biden, Harris, and Buttigeg and this focus on less important issues to possibly overlook the bad voting records of these three on major issues rather than less important/less pressing issues. So are we going to focus on marijuana legalization in the next Democratic debate? (Although I support MJ legalization, it's not a pressing issue compared to many other more important issues)
I'm more interested (read: more pressing issues) in foreign policy, Medicare-for-all, universal basic income or some other way to deal with automation, climate change, and immigration reform. More Andrew Yang, Sanders, and maybe Warren and less of these three.
9
Running a campaign on Medicare for all and universal basic income may well appeal to Bernie Bros, but it would result in another four years of President Trump. Sanders is not someone who the electoral college voters in the swing states are going to vote for, and for better or worse, they're the ones who count most, and they're the ones who need to be convinced to vote for someone other than Trump. You folks from the "Left Coast" need to wake up and smell the turmeric and coconut-oil latte - Bernie Sanders has absolutely no chance of ever being the President of the United States, and neither does Elizabeth Warren. Their policies are too scary to the voters of "real" America.
1
Biden’s former stance on busing isn’t going to get him any Trump votes. The question is whether he can beat Trump. I don’t think he’s articulate or exciting enough to overcome Trump’s demagoguery.
1
@Doug Lowenthal
He can and will look Trump in the eye and call him a punk. That is what needs to be done. Nobody we have can out-demagogue Trump. He needs to called out and faced down.
2
Vice President Biden is a good man and his actions in the 1970s is acceptable, given the milieu of the time. But that's why the mantle of power has to pass. Times change.
In the 1970s, China had an economy smaller than that of the UK, social media did not exist, climate change was not urgent, the USSR was the biggest rival, and women and people of color still "knew their place". Any attention spent to rehash busing is not attention spent on today's challenges.
7
It bends logic.
If he was a hero of desegregation, then why did Harris rip him on this during the debate?
It’s either he is guilty as sin by having been pro bus segregation, before he was against it, thus is having yet more flip flops, and incapable of holding a position.
Or Harris is clue less as to Joe’s heroics in bringing desegregation, in which case she should be trounced over attacking the man who fought for bus desegregation.
It’s one or the other.
Choose which, and roast the candidate who is lying.
Must be a tragedy for Joe. He cannot convince the Democrats to back him up, while being attacked by Trump and the Democrats.
3
@AutumnLeaf Harris shamefully kneecapped Biden in the way Sen. Gillibrand torpedoed Sen. Franken: a cheap shot to help themselves.
Busing was so unpopular in the '70s that some social diseases polled higher. It never got out of the single digits among both white and black families. I can readily accept her own testimony that the voluntary program in Berkeley was a positive for her, but judging American society by Berkeley is like trying to assess national food costs by studying Whole Foods. Sen. Harris really did not need to open this can of worms.
3
The Dems are all lined-up in what commentator Charlie Sykes calls "the circular firing-squad". This endless squabbling will not beat Donald Trump. Eyes on the prize, people!
2
It's amazing and saddening to me that more than 60 years after the Brown vs. Board of Education decision, that the integration of schools is still as a 'toxic' and divisive issue, even among many Democrats. The objection to busing programs to achieve school integration, and the undermining and termination of such programs even by purported liberals has left us with schools that are at least as segregated now as they were in the '60s and '70s, and in many cases more so. Which in turn has resulted in a society that still bears significant scars of segregation and large racial education, opportunity, and economic gaps.
This is a gross failing of our society and the politics that undergirds it. The fact that many Democratic voters, as evidenced in this very comments section, think we still have to kowtow to white racists, segregationists, and racial fearmongers in order not to lose a national election is a primary sign of this massive failure to meaningfully address historical wrongs and bring our people, or at least our children, closer together rather than further apart.
2
The past can not be changed People can! Joe Biden has proven himself time and again to be for our people and democracy over all else.
2
It is typical of democrats to focus on something that DOES NOT matter in 2019. I do not believe Kamala Harris was right in bringing up such an irrelevant issue when we have much more pressing matters at hand. Starting a race war in the presidential election right now is suicide for democrats. I will support her if she wins the nomination but I do not believe she showed good judgment in turning this into a story.
3
And this is how the progressive far left will sink another Democratic election ushering in another four years of Donald Trump as well as right wing packed Federal judiciary and a 7-2 right wing Supreme Court. How this furthers progressive causes is a mystery.
11
Is this the Media trying to get more profit by getting people cranked up on things like 2016 Hilary’s email? Good press, more eyeballs, more revenue, all the way to the election! The mainstream media was as bad as the whacko media in the promotion of that tale. Lead to an easier Trump victory. Trying for a repeat?
6
So, here’s the dilemma for liberal politicians. How do you survive in a country with a history of racism that has embedded discriminatory practices in its institutions and culture so thoroughly that to undo them you are in danger of offending the sense of justice held by many, many Americans who feel that they ought to have extensive control over their own personal lives in things like where they live and where their children go to school. These include people who are decent and civic minded, who find the assignment of blacks to the backs of buses or their banishment from lunch counters to be abhorrent. Nevertheless, when they perceive a threat to their children’s education, they don’t want to be on the front lines of correcting three centuries of racism and institutionalized discrimination. Many Democrats did not survive the backlash , even though their constituents re-elected Lyndon Johnson, A primary civil rights champions by a huge landslide. That backlash helped Nixon win and it was the source of Reagan Democrats who voted Republican then and continue to do so today.
Joe Biden carved out a position that many liberals today find untenable, but largely by doing that he held on to a senate seat that might easily have become Republican in the Reagan era. Nevertheless, in my mind he remains far more a champion of equal rights than many today who live in gentrified white neighborhoods and complain that he is out of touch with the New Democratic Party.
5
Is this all you've got for a Monday....getting to be old news, step it up!
4
Although an important topic, why so much coverage?
3
The assumption made by Kamala Harris, and other who are critical of Biden’s complicated involvement with forced busing, is that busing as a remedy for a segregated society is unquestioned. It wasn’t in the 1970s and it isn’t today. Less that one-half of one percent of the nation’s school districts use voluntary busing to achieve various integration goals. Forced busing is deeply unpopular. Claims re its great success are dubious. This issue being brought up now, to attack Biden, smells of opportunism. Harris herself doesn’t support the kind busing forced on communities in the 1970s. Her current position is the same as Biden’s. So, can we move on?
35
@Jack Archer It was a social and political failure. But how does Sen. Harris undo her cheap attack on Biden? That said a lot more about her character than his.
11
The problem I see with Biden's stand that he didn't offer anything else that would achieve desegregation, neither he offered anything that would increase the quality of the pre-dominately black school. Public housing didn't create the integration either, and contributed to the white flight. As matter of fact, if the busing was enforced there was no reason for whites to flee the Cities, because suburban school would have the black students as well. You can argue if busing work or not for improving education, but it definitely help the integration, and re-segregation of schools after mandatory busing was canceled is the proof. So, what is the Biden's proposal to desegregate schools and society?
1
There aren't very many places in this country where you don't find people of all races: neighborhoods, offices, restaurants, schools. Rather than spending money on busses, wasting student/parents time getting up early and the student s being away from home incase of an emergency... improve local schools. Sitting next to a white kid doesn't make a person of color a better student. Education is the new integration.
9
Sitting next to the white kid, doesn't make the black kid smarter, but it does give him an opportunity to get better education, because majority of the predominately white school have more resources than the predominately black school.
2
Busing is irrelevant today. The only Biden policies that are relevant today are his 94 crime bill and related initiatives such as sentencing disparities between crack (blacks) and powdered cocaine (whites). The media won’t cover these issues because it would also have to cover Harris’s abysmal record in California.
23
With all of the serious issues confronting our nation: climate change, a failing health care system, impending mass unemployment due to automation, the immigration crisis, ballooning national debt, a slowing global economy, we’re now stuck talking about petty motivations behind local school transport decisions made 40 years ago.
This is not important to anyone except Kamala Harris, who is just looking for a way to wreck Joe Biden’s campaign, and journalists playing into her hands, desperate for the next faux scandal to flesh out an interminably long primary season. Come on NYT, you have to do better than this.
39
It is important to millions of students who are forced to attend the bad schools. Bad and unequal education is one of the problem of our society.
The idea that Biden and his ilk merely folded to racist pressure by the 'white community' is a dishonest inversion of the facts. It was racist anti-busing fear mongering campaigns by politicians and businesses that sought to instill fear and stampede white parents with horror stories. Biden's dirty politics of opposing desegregation helped pave the way for violent opposition in Boston, where racist mobs whipped up by the (Democrat) politicians violently roamed the streets attacking Black children. Encouraged by politicians and business entire school districts shut down rather than allow desegregation. Biden was in the good company of arch segregationist Wallace, and other Dixiecrats. Schools in the US are more segregated today than any time since Jim Crow. Blame rests squarely on dirty politics of the Democrats and Republicans, and Biden in particular.
4
Somehow I don’t think you were alive in the days of busing.
6
Thank you NY Times for bringing up the past yet again? Let's see when was that again? the 1970s?
Where we up against Trump then? I wonder what he thought, never mind we know.
Do we want 4 more years of this? Can our Democracy, already frayed by his last 3 years, survive another 4 years of this abominable devil incarnate?
Keep it up if that's what you want.
Is there any candidate other than Biden who will take PA, OH, MI and FL? Please let me know I'll be glad to vote for them. Otherwise let's concentrate on building him up--got it? As you often point out we are living in a dangerous time for our Democracy pitch in!!!
15
Considering how well Biden worked with the racists, some may think the election of Biden will not heal the country.
@yulia
You might consider that back then those segregationists were part of the Democratic party and as a result Democrats controlled the house and senate--and passed the civil rights bills along with many other democratic agendas.
Now these southern segregationists are part of the Republican party and so McConnel and company control the agenda.
Are you happier with the arrangement today?
STOP !!!!!!!
15
Remedial reading programs, upgraded facilities, opportunities, open up housing patterns. These were his alternative solutions. The first three sound more like trying to put the ‘equal’ back into the segregation separate-but-equal standard. Didn’t Brown say it was a failed concept, that nothing could make separate schools equal?
Opening up housing patterns. How has that worked? What were his views, comment on the lending industry’s.....redlining practices. Any legislation on that front? Any tax breaks for integrated neighborhoods, towns, cities? Any increased funding for centrally located magnet schools?
And if he is philosophically opposed to federal mandates per se, how many of our Bill of Rights rights should we abandon and leave to the states to enforce, guarantee?
A follow up article on his solutions to our now-increasing school re-segregation, how well his ideas did than, now, would only be fair.
As well, perhaps former President Obama might comment on why he chose Sen Biden as his running mate. It was my thinking then (and now) that picking a moderate white man would emphasize his intent to be a president of all the people, not just African Americans (a concern at the time, as I recall). No doubt Sen Biden’s......history....played into that calculation.
Senator Biden isn’t my candidate-of-choice, but more history on all the candidates is educational for we voters- keep up the good work.
3
Simple math shows that meaningful integration cannot occur in urban schools without busing in students from the suburbs.
In fall 2018 there were 1,135,334 students in the NYC school system, only 15% (170,300) of whom were white. There were 1,840 public schools (including charters), with an average of 617 students per school. (NYCDoE)
The tiny percentage of white students means that the closest NYC can come to integrating its schools is to place an equal number of white students into each City school, which would mean an average of 93 white students and an average of 524 nonwhite students per school.
The Mayor and School Superintendent seem to believe that mixing white students with minority students is the only way to improve educational outcomes for minority students, but I don't think 93 white students per school is enough to accomplish that goal. (And isn't it insulting to suggest that minority students need exposure to white students to improve in school?)
This shortage of white students exists in virtually every city, and attempts to force integration by busing or by re-zoning school districts will make further white flight to suburbs or private schools inevitable.
There are simply not enough white students to spread around NYC or other cities’ public schools.
The solution to the problem of variable student outcomes is to acknowledge that residential and economic segregation exist, and focus efforts and funds on improving education in ALL public schools.
14
It is a great idea, but in practice this idea works better when the white students are part of the schools. By some weird reason, improving the schools speeds up when the white kids have to attend it. I guess never underestimate the influence of the white parents in our society.
Yes, Biden's position was so terrible that it made him unacceptable, and so it was impossible for Obama to choose him as his running mate in 2008.
If Democrats are going to insist that their elected officials be purer than the driven snow, they are going to end up with another four years of Trump.
15
Indeed, 40 years ago Senator Biden 's record on integration did not meet the goals of some, and viewed through the eyes of 2019 appears reprehensible. What has he done since then? More good than harm.
If the American voters had any sense of history about integration, they know that President Lyndon Johnson did the most to promote integration of any 20th century POTUS, despite his decades long history of voting against such policies while in the House and Senate.
If the goal of the Democratic party is to defeat the GOP in 2020, they must focus on the future while carefully weighing all previous history of candidates.
72
@Jim
Since then he wrote the crime bill. Please name the good he did that outweighs that harm.
3
@Jim Unfortunately we’re confronted by a range of bad choice but electing Trump again is unacceptable.
3
@Jim. Ummm, I guess his careful shepherding of Clarence Thomas through the confirmation hearing was an aberration?
And his active and hands on work for the new bankruptcy bill that Victorians would have hailed and the banks adore was a momentary lapse in judgement?
Some of us are carefully weighing our potential standard bearer. And this man doesn't make the cut. Not for one minute.
9
Yes, by all means let's keep focusing on Joe Biden's stance on busing from four decades ago. Just like all the glare on Hillary's emails.
All that did was help her lose the election to Donald Trump, and I fear history is peskily repeating itself here.
Can we talk about Biden's Stance on the relevant issues that affect Americans today? Like health care? Wage disparity? Ongoing wars in the Middle East? I am much more interested in what he has to say Joe Biden's on those issues.
That, and his plan to defeat Trump in 2020. I am really interested to hear his thoughts on that.
10
Let's talk about. What is his stance in the healthcare? Don't rock the boat - keep ACA even although it doesn't make healthcare affordable for many folks and was not able to curb the growing cost. What is his stance on the wars? As far as I remember he voted for the war in Iraq. If the Dems have nothing better than Biden, they deserve another term of Trump.
Those who complain that digging into Biden's past positions on busing is counter productive need to remember that it was Biden himself who opened the door to this issue by bragging about his civil relationships with flaming segregationists. Moreover, he has consistently mischaracterized the positions he took. No politician should expect to cite his experience as a qualification for higher office and think that voters will not inspect his/her record.
3
It's the 2020 campaign and here we are talking about busing in the 1970s. For this I give credit to the cynical genius of Kamala Harris for concocting a gotcha debate moment. It was only after the smoke cleared that we realized that there was no substantive difference between the two candidates on this obscure, complex historical issue. Maybe next the former SF DA and CA AG with a record of locking up black and brown people can go after Joe Biden for his support for the '90s crime bill, something she herself would have supported if she'd had to cast a vote then.
Something tells me that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's aide Saikat Chakrabarti wouldn't have had the temerity, or the creativity, to call Congressional Democrats segregationist sympathizers for striking a compromise on border security if Harris hadn't lowered the bar by playing the race card more than once with Biden.
But Harris is merely taking a page from the successful Trump presidential playbook by stoking racial resentment, just as she is by offering up pie-in-the-sky populist policies that she has no intention of delivering on, like her vaguely defined "Medicare for All" "plan." It worked for Trump. And considering how the mainstream media is gushing over her and how she has established herself as the black candidate, it could very well work for Harris.
13
I send my son to integrated public schools and a private school, founded on the principles of MLK, that sought and achieved racial diversity. I have been arrested in campus anti-apartheid and other anti-racist demonstrations. I have advocated for undocumented immigrants.
Yet I would not allow my then 5 year-old son to be bused to an elite private school, because I would not put a five year old on a bus or send him to school in an unfamiliar neighborhood. We turned down the admission, instead enrolling our son in a local public school program.
Nor would my working-class parents have allowed me or my sister to be bused to a school out of our neighborhood, let alone to one with a poor academic record. While I understand that a black parent might have "bitten the busing bullet" for the opportunity to send their child to a better school, no parent, white or black, who had alternatives was eager to do that. And - sorry, Sen. Harris - no parent had an affirmative moral or social obligation to do so.
Busing was an attempt to use children to achieve integration - at social engineering. That is not the way to achieve racial integration. While my public elementary school was virtually all white, my JHS and high school were integrated, because students from several neighborhoods attended. By that time - 7th grade- we were old enough to ride a bus.
Busing was unpopular, for good reasons. It was a failed policy, and Biden was right, on all counts.
11
What are these better policies for integration? And why weren't they implemented before the busing? And busing did work, because the school were desegregate and did give an opportunity for some black kids to attend better schools than they would be able to attend without busing.
@yulia First, the magnet school, which integrated middle- and junior high schools, when kids were old enough to travel on the bus or subway (I did).
Secondly, attack red-lining and other discriminatory practices that keep neighborhoods segregated, and create or preserve affordable housing in areas that are gentrifying. Affordable housing tends to be more integrated than market-rate housing.
Thirdly, and this takes longer, look at the causes. Institutional racism creates barriers to advancement that traps black families in poverty. Economic integration precedes social integration, which precedes school integration.
The answer is not putting a six year old on a bus. Never was, and yes, wide-scale busing was a failure.
1
I lived in New Jersey in the 1970’s. Black children were bused to my school in second grade. In 3rd grade, we, the white kids from the more affluent district, were bused to their school.
My second grade teacher was a white, liberal hippie type. My recollection was that she treated us all fairly. There were 2 boys in my class from the black community who seemed to struggle in our classroom. I was friends with both of them and they were nice.
My 3rd grade teacher was white with long, straight blond hair, khaki skirts and cardigans. I remember noticing, even at that age, how much harsher she was with the black kids who were her regular students than she was with us white “visitors”. I thought it was awful. Until that point, I hadn’t thought anything much about the differences between myself and any other child.
I was eager to join jump rope games that the black girls played on their school playground. I hung around for days going that I would get invited to join. One girl shouted at me- “Hey, what you looking at?” I was pretty scared but replied, “I am looking at all of you because that looks like so much fun.” From that day onward I was allowed to join those girls and they were great. But our friendships never went beyond the playground. Beyond busing, there didn’t seem to be much else planned.
The thinking seemed to only go as far as- hey- let’s throw all of these kids together and say that we liberals have solved racism.
2
I had not realized until now just how disingenuous Biden could be. His quoted comments characterizing those who favored bussing as believing "the only way a black man or woman can learn is if they rub shoulders with my white child" is so patently dishonest that I have lost all respect for Biden.
He knew full well as a lawyer that the Brown v. Bd. of Education decision finally recognized the reality that there were fundamental differences between black schools and educations received in them and that in white schools. The latter invariably had better infrastructure, resources and teachers, and that continuing to educated black children in such segregated schools imposed a badge of inferiority on them.
Bussing to achieve integrated schools was a fundamental tool for providing an immediate, much-needed remedial end to segregated schools. Most opposed bussing because they didn't want their kids sitting next to blacks. Biden's suggestion that bussing advocates believed "the only way" black students can learn is by sitting next to white students so grossly misrepresents the Brown opinion that it must have been a deliberate decision on his part. Although it was inexcusable, it's the kind of deceit we have come to expect from our politicians and forgive. But as far as I'm concerned, it disqualifies him from becoming POTUS, unless of course the alternative choice is the master of lies and deceit now in the White House. But surely the Dems can do better, much better than Biden.
2
Reading the history I witnessed as a young person makes me see Biden’s move to anti-busing as a move to get elected and rise in political power. This quote says it all: “This is the real problem with busing,” Mr. Biden went on. “You take people who aren’t racist, people who are good citizens, who believe in equal education and opportunity, and you stunt their children’s intellectual growth by busing them to an inferior school, and you’re going to fill them with hatred.“
He admits that segregated schools for black children are inferior but he wants to keep the status quo so white children do not get a poor education. This quote from Biden really bothers me.
3
As obnoxious was Biden's point of view in the 1970s, it does not concern me as much as his justification now for his position against mandated busing then.
He claims now that he was never opposed to busing mandated as a result of "de jure" segregation. That is a legitimate point. So, he suggested in the 1970s that schools in Black neighborhoods receive more funding and that changes be made in "housing patterns" (whatever that meant), as an alternative to most busing. One can disagree with his understanding of busing's benefits but at least he tried to take a reasonable view.
It is now 2019. We know now that housing discrimination against Black people, including red lining, real estate covenants, rental discrimination, and other measures meant to keep Black people isolated in certain neighborhoods, was sanctioned by government in the 1970s. That a seasoned politician like Biden seems unaware that "de jure" segregation was not merely limited to allowing schools to refuse admission to Black students, is concerning to me. His point of view does not seem to have changed. This, to me, suggests he is clueless about the reality of racism in the United States today. He does not deserve the Democratic nomination.
We will not vote for Joe.
Bernie Sanders! If you are not the nominee we are writing you in!
We'll take a bus to the polls.
The DNC and the media can take a break.
1
The busing issue highlights the flaws in Joe Biden in that he is a poor communicator of his message. He may have had good intentions when he felt busing was not the solution and time has proven that racism is so endemic, that a yellow bus can’t fix it. That’s what he should have said at the debate, instead he got slammed and all he showed was lack of preparation and that he is out of touch with today’s world.
16
@Daniel B
Your point is fair, however I would like to point out that
1. the issue is not relevant today (there's a rough consensus that busing programs do not work and that localities should choose what works for them).
2. Biden and Kamala Harris largely agree on the issue; and
3. Harris' anecdote came out of nowhere and was intellectually dishonest, considering Harris herself doesn't support mandatory busing.
I forgive Biden for being unprepared for a nonsensical made-for-tv soundbite that Harris herself couldn't even rationalize afterwards.
29
@Daniel B By your own description that means Harris still took a cheap and unfair shot.
16
I agree it shows him to be unprepared but did he really think a 40 yr old issue would randomly pop up in this debate? No, and hopefully woke him up and will have a stronger performance in the next debate.
4
Many people incorrectly believe that federally mandated busing to achieve integration would be only one-way, from urban schools to suburban schools, as if all or most urban minority kids will be bused to the suburbs.
However, the fact is that in order for busing to work it would have to be two-way, with millions of minority schoolkids bused from city schools to suburban schools, and millions of white kids bused from suburbs to urban schools.
This is why so many suburban residents oppose mandatory busing, not because their schools will receive some minority students, but because to balance things out some white students will have to be bused to urban schools, which parents of all races generally agree are of lower quality than those in the suburbs.
Further, if busing were only one-way, from cities to suburbs, the taxes of suburban residents would have to go up to pay for additional teachers and classrooms, which is never going to happen. Nor is it remotely likely that cities will give to suburban schools the money the cities save by closing schools and laying off teachers no longer needed because the city kids have been bused to the suburbs.
If the Democratic Party makes federally mandated busing of students a plank in its 2020 platform, we are doomed to another term of Trump.
10
sure, we should be content with the black children getting worse education than the whites ones. Funny, how the white parents rallied against buses, but not for increasing the quality of the schools their children has to attend
Joe Biden has been around so long that he has taken every possible position along the conservative to moderate to liberal to progressive Democratic Party issue from busing to abortion to income equality to war and peace.
And the two times that Biden tried to ride that chimera into the Oval Office of the White House-1988 and 2008- he crashed and burned on takeoff. Hillary Clinton took Biden's last turn for herself in 2016.
Joe Biden belongs in a Democratic Party natural history museum exhibit on prehistoric Democrats aka before Barack Hussein Obama and after the fall of America under Donald Trump.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un and Mohammed bin Salman will be honored guests at the opening of the museum along with remarks by President Ivanka Trump and Vice President Donald Trump, Jr..
No collusion ! MAGA !
2
@Blackmamba And the "base" that likes to sit home during crucial midterms, dooming courts and censuses for years, now expects to control the nomination.
1
@Blair
Among the 66 million Americans who voted for Hillary Clinton was 92% of the black voting minority including 88% of black men and 95% of black women.
Among the 63 million Americans who voted for Donald Trump was 58% of the white voting majority including 62% of white men and 54% of white women.
The most loyal and long suffering base of the Democratic Party is black African American Protestant women.
Neither Joe Biden nor Nancy Pelosi nor Chuck Schumer nor Donald Trump nor Mike Pence nor Mitch McConnell nor Kevin McCarthy nor Elizabeth Warren nor Pete Buttigieg speak to nor for them.
And they have been turning out in every election since 2008 more than other cohort.
1
I cannot believe that with Donald Trump tearing our civic fabric to shreds, our environment going up in flames (or under water), and America’s once great middle class evaporating, Democrats (and the New York Times) think busing in the 1970s is the critical topic our country needs to be discussing right now.
We might as well just hand Trump a second term and save ourselves the agony of an election.
32
Any parent that willing allows their child to be bused to another school district (and often a failing district at that) is not performing their parental duty to their child. And parents in failing school systems who cannot effect the change necessary to improve the district are likewise failing their children, and themselves. Busing is probably the worst big government fiasco ever foisted on the American people.
9
Why wouldn't the white parents rally for improvement of the schools where their children were bused too? They had much more clout than poor black folks. The people who are content with inequality and injustice failed their kids and the society.
Instead of talking about climate change - something that might kill millions of people - we are talking about school bussing in the 70s.
39
The middle of the road continues republicanism.
You can't patch it! It's the economic system stupid!
You can have your capitalism if you tax the rich. If you don't tax the rich, capitalism will destroy the country. It's really simple.
70% and above was just right. Reagan was wrong!
Single payer. Period! Get sane!
Without government we have nothing.
1
As with all historical Marxist / leftist movements.. they eventually eat their own.. as this article exemplifies..
6
Joe Biden’s stands on busing and other issues (his advocacy of housing desegregation and magnet schools) should be viewed in the context of the times.
I lived in the Boston area during the busing debacle in that city. Regrettably, black and white children were being bused into inferior schools in hostile neighborhoods. School desegregation was achieved, but at a very steep price.
Meanwhile, none of the predominantly white suburban school systems surrounding Boston were affected.
Those looking for more meaningful and peaceful means to achieving school desegregation therefore began to advocate alternative approaches, including regional redistricting (the plan ultimately adopted in Delaware), the creation of racially diverse magnet schools, and housing desegregation.
Joe Biden’s opposition to busing— he instead favored magnet schools and housing desegregation— should be viewed in this context.
95
@ANetliner If by "very steep price" you mean a Pyrrhic victory, then yes. It absolutely contributed to the Reagan backlash the toppled a sitting Democratic president. It was a myopic, short-term gain at the expense of the USSC for a generation (and it's not even clear if it actually amounted to a lasting gain). It's what to expect from a party that acts tactically, not strategically.
6
This is a long story. At the end of several thousand words, the most important facts are not clear to me. Near the end of the story the authors write: "Busing in Wilmington ended in 1995 when, after 17 years of federally mandated integration measures, the state education board successfully argued to be released from oversight. The State Legislature has since passed a law stating every child should attend the school closest to their home." The details I want to know have to do with that period--the 17-year period of federally mandated integration. Is the implication that this was the period of federally imposed busing? If so, what impact did it have on where whites and blacks lived, and on educational attainment in the area in which the order was enforced? What situation in 1995 brough this period of federal oversight to an end? Quite apart from all the politics surrounding the subject, and statements that various actors make about it today, what happened, exactly? Nothing in the story as written makes me disagree with Biden's point from the outset that moving kids around like chess pieces is the proper answer to unequal educational opportunity or attainment. Would it not have been much more direct to greatly upgrade the existing schools and perhaps build some new ones within, say, Wilmington, and pay teachers more?
2
It’s interesting that Biden has run twice before for president and this didn’t come up apparently. Could it be that he wasn’t taken seriously before as a presidential candidate? His imploded campaigns seem to confirm that.
1
How are the examples of Thurgood Marshall sending his own son to Sidwell Friends or busing advocate Ted Kennedy sending his own children to private schools not historically and politically instructive? Do Democrats today believe election night 1980 was fun, or that 12 years of Reagan/Bush influence on the USSC was no big deal? The time was filled with talk of "judicial overreach" and the hypocrisy of "limousine liberals," and busing contributed to Democratic losses. How was a senator like Ted Kennedy, who didn't care if he challenged and weakened a sitting president of his own party, better than a Joe Biden, who tried to hold things together? The sugar high of Kennedy's idealism felt good, but Biden's unsatisfying pragmatism is politically and morally defensible if it is in service to broader liberal victory--in the long run.
6
Keep piling on decades-old problems with Joe Biden and all you're going to do is reelect Trump. A fate worse than death.
7
Should’ve become anti-voucher crusader. Need to fund public schools not allow flight.
Some of Biden’s positions are over forty years old.
Times change, people evolve.
This is a “strawman” argument.
Let’s discuss the most pressing issues of today and not waste valuable time rehashing forty year old positions.
Time to move on.
Biden’s overall positions have been in the best interest of our country.
That can’t be said about DJT!
Keep your eyes on the most important goal, defeating Trump in 2020.
10
Joe Biden - a profile in courage writ large.
3
I can tell you from first-hand experience, Forced Busing did not work. I taught at Hyde Park High School in Boston in 1977. It was a noble idea but it failed for this simple reason... it made no sense to bus white kids to a black neighborhood. A, they weren't going to go, and B, what is the point of giving the white kids an inferior education? Yes, black students were getting (still are) and inferior public education. But two wrongs don't make a right. What happened was that 90% of the white kids went to private of Catholic schools. I am a huge believer in equal opportunity but busing was a failure.
23
If you're on the same side of a racial issue as Jesse Helms, you're on the wrong side.
@Ncsdad
Respectfully, a large number of people agreed that federally-mandated busing was not an effective solution to educational disparities.
Just because others agreed with Joe Biden doesn't make him a racist or on the wrong side of an issue.
3
The media is being very protective of certain candidates and clearly has an agenda to push Biden out of the race. All Trump has to do is shut up and let the leftists win his second term for him. Unfortunately he can’t seem to do that...
3
Why is NY Times wasting space with this? There was a time all of us had to be potty-trained. Maybe write about that, huh?
Nero is in the White House, accelerating his fiddling, dousing Rome with more "in-flame-atory tweets" ; we are watching a rapid burn here folks. We have yet to see his tax returns; lots of behind the scenes damage to our institutions in the present now while we are trained to look at the shiny objects. I have to stop so my head won't "explode". Good day to all.
11
Does the times want Donald Trump to win again in 2020? Stop flogging this stupid issue. Nobody cares what happened in 1974 or 75 or 76 either. That is ancient history. Are you trying to paint Biden as a racist? That is ridiculous. As for the importance of busing, the single most important factor in educational outcomes is parenting. Nobody wants to tackle this issue because it's too controversial to say that bad parenting leads to bad educational outcomes. Why don't you do an article about that?
7
Write what you will--but Biden is not going to run a country based on what 12 - 50 people think. Trump has such a sliver of Base running things--egregious, outrageous, ludicrous
There is only one ting that matters about Joe Biden's record, it's not Donald Trump's.
Talking about his previous views on busing, while Donald Trump tells America that "If your not white you're not an American", seems, to me, to be beyond absurdity.
2
The issue of court-ordered busing was hideously complex, far more so than this article allows. Black leaders, for example, were overwhelmingly opposed, and results were tragically mixed.
So, why is this issue being dusted off now in liberal publications decades later, when we are facing two existential issues in the next election: loss of our democracy, and loss of a livable planet.
One can only suspect a political motive to kneecap the front-runner, whom many liberals detest. Why? Because he is not one of them; he doesn’t meet their litmus tests for tribal membership.
But that very lack of liberal bona vides is what makes him a viable
opponent for Trump. To gain 270 votes in the Electoral College, the Democratic candidate will have to win over the swing voters and independents—largely white and non-college—who dominate the political landscape in the battleground states.
I can’t imagine any of the other candidates pulling that off, except perhaps Elizabeth Warren, and it’s too early to know about her.
That said, I support a ticket of Biden-Warren, currently ranked #1 and #2 in the polls by Real Clear Politics, and both gaining over the pack as this is written. http://tinyurl.com/y6lufdw4
5
What the heck? Why are we even talking about this? Topic interesting to a small percentage of Americans, me not one of them. And yes I was bussed all the way across town to another school for the sake of diversity as a child but who cares...move on! Everyone has a story, everyone is a victim, everyone has hurt.
3
A huge portion of today's electorate have no living memories of the 1950s, 60s and 70s. They never saw a white's only water fountain, a colored bathroom, or a sign in their neighbor's yard that read "This is a white neighborhood not for sale to negroes." They have no memory of the terror and fear Joseph McCarthy and the "red scare" that destroyed the optimism of post WWII America. They did not see the body bag count of the Vietnam War on the evening news. They did not see the riots, destruction and deployment of armed national guard troops across American cities and college campuses.
Busing was an idea that had some success, but more failure. It took money away from education and contributed to white flight, suburban growth and economic pain in cities across the nation. It was a bandaid on a gushing gut wound.
Joe Biden saw both sides of the argument. He saw them from the context of the time in which it occurred. American was not perfect then. America is not perfect now. Is a 50 year old opinion on the value of busing worth 4 more years of Trump?
8
We can’t assume that busing is all good and anyone who was or is not for it are racist or even unsympathetic to racial injustice. It seems that Joe Biden really grappled with complexity and the danger of unintended consequences. This piece made me like him more, not less.
128
This issue fully exemplifies how the political left consistently gets itself into trouble. School desegregation is a fundamental progressive goal. But, we are now litigating decades-old positions on school busing designed to achieve that goal.
The reality is that school busing has largely failed to achieve the goal. There are two primary reasons. First, housing segregation is the primary driver, and we have made few meaningful gains in that area. Second, economic disparity is the other primary driver - when wealthy people (who are disproportionately white) are faced with poor quality schools, they find the resources to send their children to private schools.
These are fundamental problems that are still very far from being solved. I personally was in an elementary school in NYC when busing was begun, and all burden was put on the minority children to spend a good part of their day on yellow buses to attend a mostly white school. They still had a separate educational experience because of segregation within the school building.
Whether Joe Biden was good or bad decades ago because he opposed part of the busing agenda is not a simple issue. Kamala Harris (and others) can achieve short-term political gains by non-so-subtly accusing Biden of racism while ignoring the failed-policy approach, but she also drives a wedge within the left that has lasting harm for the whole cause.
We really should be focusing on what policy approaches would work moving forward. I have heard none.
48
Much ado about nothing. School busing was a well-intentioned
but myopic idea that caused more problems than it solved. The better solution would have been to improve ALL schools, which can be done. And to 'magically' eliminate social inequality, which is not easily done, but improved education is a really good start.
Biden's reasons for abandoning the busing program were sound, and Harris exploiting this and aligning him with the notorious segregationists from the the South was a shallow ploy to win support. Had Harris been around in the 70's, she would've voted the same way.
All this shows is that Mayor Pete is your strongest candidate.
24
This is a terrifically complex issue, and not least because some of the realities on the ground, and the views that various people take of them, have changed over time. What the article captures is that Biden consistently attempted to nuance his position in order to walk a tightrope between those among his constituents who believed in integrating the schools by any means necessary, and those who passionately opposed either the goal of racial integration itself, or the means of busing. I think it is fair to say about Biden, in retrospect, that he didn't exactly show leadership on this issue. He followed political instincts, not commitments.
Some will find his rhetorical question at the time -- "Are you saying that a black child has to go to school alongside a white child? Isn't that racist?" -- to be disingenuous, and perhaps it was. That said, it is a fact that many black parents today are asking exactly the same question. I live in a city that has used well-funded inter-district magnet schools to attempt to effect racial balance as mandated by a state court ruling. The plan has had some success... but the magnet schools serve only about a third of the city's overwhelming black and brown student population, and now a backlash movement -- among parents of color -- is asking whether the whole thing was even necessary. Can't the so-called "neighborhood" schools be made excellent, even if there are no white kids in them?
Which was Biden's question way back then.
10
The NYTimes is doing an excellent job of profiling the Democrat candidates, with incisive analysis of their past policies and actions as well as their personal lives. No doubt, the Republicans will use this treasure -trove of information to their advantage in 2020. If only the NYTimes had devoted similar investigative efforts toward Donald Trump two years ago, we might have avoided the horrors of his presidency. With your help, he might coast to a second term, to the peril of the country and the world.
29
And the NYT’s campaign to defeat Biden and get someone like Warren in as the nominee continues. As a republican I thank you since Trump will easily defeat her thereby locking in all the gains of his most successful presidency.
18
@Bob - Hear, hear.
With the discussion of forced busing, Medicare-for-all eliminating private health care for 150 million Americans while providing coverage for illegal immigrants, open borders.
The Democratic leadership is doing everything possible to ensure Republican domination.
6
What will it take to convince African-Americans that the best way to decrease racial inequality is to decrease economic inequality? So far, for some reason, Bernie Sanders has been unable to do it.
4
Some hard truths:
(1) People like Joe Biden and Bill Clinton rescued the Democratic Party at the national level following the 1984 Mondale and 1988 Dukakis debacles, precisely by being relatively conservative, not liberal, on very hot-button issues like busing, abortion, crime and immigration.
(2) Jimmy Carter and Obama were exceptions, not rules: each became President at the end of a two-term Republican Presidency that ended under unprecedented circumstances (Nixon resignation; global financial crisis), consistent with the general past WW2 pattern of the White House switching parties every 8 rather than 4 years.
(3) A winning Democratic nominee will tend to be more/most conservative within the confines of Democratic orthodoxy. Hillary was castigated for being too establishment/too conservative, but whipped Trump by 3 million popular votes (only losing due to political malpractice, i.e. failure to campaign in WI, MI and PA).
(4) Bush Jr. needed the Supreme Court to win in 2000, and was at the time as hated as Trump is now. Nevertheless, he trounced John Kerry in 2004. Lesson: it is very difficult to defeat a President running for re-election.
(5) Conclusion: The Democrat nominee has his/her work cut out for he/she next year. As a practical matter, only Biden or Hillary (if she jumps in to empty the current Dem clown car) have a realistic shot of assembling the Electoral Votes needed to beat Trump.
13
Biden is the epitome of moderation taken to the extreme.
Although you correctly explain the conflict in the Wilmington area, you do not emphasize that Biden was a representative of the entire state. Delaware is a small state but divided not just between urban and suburban, but also between urban and rural. It's where DuPont meets Dogpatch. North of the state capitol it's corporate and financial nirvana, south of the capitol it was Alabama. Biden's busing flip was understood as politically required in a state that later nominated an alleged witch for election.
3
It's rather comical how fast they turn on each other, when they are in competition. Keep it up. I notice Biden, is not participating in the attacks, and he is the only one I would vote for. With AOC, Ilhan, Pressley and the other one stirring things up (none of them are electable, outside of their little, limited, constituency), it appears they are handing the Presidency back to Trump in 2020. Is that what you really want? Amazing, stirring up anything you can find on the only guy that can beat Trump.
21
Now, let's pick over, with exquisite detail, all the stands the other candidates have taken over their lifetimes. Especially all important issues in today's world like busing. Let's pick everything out of the context of their times and apply our current "exemplary" standards of political correctness to everyone running. I really think Joe Biden should have been aware of the fact that decades later, his stand wouldn't look particularly good. My goodness, what was he thinking? I really don't understand why Obama likes Joe at all. And isn't Kamala uniquely qualified to wrap herself in righteousness and throw stones!! Poor thing, she's so sensitive.
OK, I'm too sarcastic today, but I'm sick of the destructive reporting on Biden.
26
One by one, the NYT is holding a microscope up to the Democrat candidates and finding flaws in each, leaving a great trail of evidence to be used by the Republicans against the eventual nominee. What a pity you did not scrutinize Mr Trump in a similar way four years ago. Proper investigative journalism then might have saved the country from the impending disaster of what is increasingly likely to be a two-term non-functional President.
16
This might be a tempest in a teapot. I read last week in the NYT, that back then, when Biden showed his leadership against forced busing, only 5% of whites supported it, and only 7% of blacks suported it. Almost everone was against forced busing of children.
17
Kamala Harris, who supports federally mandated busing of white and black schoolkids to promote integration, is a child of privilege. She went to a Montessori school in the US, 3 years of busing to an elite white school in Berkeley, and an elite school in Canada. Her parents had doctoral level educations and were in the top ten percent of their community’s income level.
Harris’ premeditated attack on Joe Biden on busing during the debate was a cheap shot, beneath the dignity of a serious presidential candidate; her campaign website was already set to sell T-shirts with pictures of her as a little girl with the caption “That little girl was me.”
Her playing the race card and simultaneously bashing the top-polling Democratic contender is not a two-fer; it is a great disappointment. I had high hopes for Harris before the debates, despite her hard line on prosecuting and incarcerating blacks, but now she is near the bottom of my list of choices for President or VP.
I think she will soon have to confront reality and recalibrate her campaign strategy when voters learn that she is for federal support of and involvement in busing white and black schoolchildren to create integrated schools. (See her comments on this in the HuffPost.)
Busing was politically toxic in the 1970s and 1980s and is no less so today. If the 2020 Democratic platform includes federally mandated busing of black and white children to promote school integration, we are doomed to a second Trump term.
130
@Mon Ray, I thought you were being hyperbolic about Harris' website selling T-shirts with "That little girl was me" on them, but I just checked and those shirts are actually there. Wow, what a cynical, prefab ambush of Biden.
30
@Mon Ray thank you for this and thank you to @Maxi .. Democrats: there is no room or time to play these games to undermine each other and the party .. I was so so disappointed in Harris, but frankly not surprised- It is naive of the “Squad”, and the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party to think they can beat Trump, his base and their machine at their game. Maureen Dowd’s column yesterday was very clear to this reality and is worth reading to remind ourselves, if this weekend was not enough, and every other nightmare of this administration, that the threat of Trumps re-election is real and not to be taken for granted.
Of course anything with a (D) in front of it is better than Trump, but not any candidate with a (D) in front of them can beat this monster ..
3
Now, how about we dissect Kamala’s records?
9
Is Joe Biden yelling at American born citizens to “go back where they came from?”
Is he offering that there are good people on both sides?
Is he caging kids at the border?
Is he cruelly attacking the parents of a fallen US soldier because they are Muslim?
Is he leaning all of the power of his office into the framework of our democracy to test its strength and see if he can break it permanently?
Let’s have some moral clarity here.
24
Our President is urging Congresswomen to "go back" to countries they came from. Now I ask, how does Biden compare? Biden is fresh air, oxygen, relief--thanks for article--we know what to do................
5
Fix the schools in economically depressed areas. Don't displace large populations of school children in order to appease a small population of liberals who are probably sending their kids to private school anyway.
Joe Biden is right and, as it turns out, Kamal Harris agrees with him on voluntary busing.
9
What the matter with Democrats?
Harris going after Biden
The Squad going after Pelosi
I hope they are all practicing saying President Trump for 6 more years.
Job ONE is getting Trump out of the White House and as many Republicans out of Congress.
Job 2,3,4 .... should be supporting Job 1. Nothing else matters.
I’d vote for my dog if he had a ‘D’ after his name. And I’m sure he would do a better job than any Republican.
88
Bussing was a band aid, forcing affordable housing into wealthy communities is the cure.
3
This issue doesn’t matter today- What matters is eliminating the incompetent bully and his complicit enablers.
I will vote blue - no matter who.
7
The Biden story is simple to tell in broad strokes. He's a politician, not a leader. A leader says, This is where we're headed and why, follow me. A politician says, Where do you want to go? I'll take you there. Segregated schools? I hear you loud and clear, I'll take care of it. Restricted abortion access? I got it, I'll get it done. Thugs and gangsters got you up late at night? I'm on it. Which I imagine at some point in our history was fine. It's not now. We need leaders. Someone with an inspiring vision of a collective path, and an wavering commitment to weather the storm to get us there. Biden's greatest skill is backslapping and such. He says as much. So, go do that. America needs leaders.
3
As a Democrat, I believe I speak for fellow Democrats (and all fellow non-racist Americans) when I say “I don’t give a darn about what Biden did or didn’t do 40 years ago. Our nation is on fire RIGHT NOW. We would benefit greatly from any Democrat, vs being saddled with trump for 4 more wretched years.
62
When will we start focusing on winning instead of being right? At a time when the Democrats need to deliver a unified, full-throated repudiation of Republican actions, policies, ethics and values, this article helps fracture us further by dredging up decades old actions.
I don't defend how Democrats have handled busing. In fact, as an old white guy who lived in lilly white suburbia, I resent Nikole Hannah-Jones' blanket statement yesterday about "white Americans'...desire to maintain racially homogeneous environments for their children."
My point is that we need to stop eating our own. When will our party - and the Times - stop handing daggers to the enemy?
21
Some people are suggesting that because this took place so long ago, it shouldn't be a factor in the 2020 campaign. I respectfully disagree with that. This wasn't just some opinion Biden held a long time ago, it's something that he acted on in his capacity as an elected official. Since Biden's entire professional career has been spent in congress, his record on these issues is essentially his resume. Anyone applying for the job of President should be subject to a thorough vetting.
It's important where Biden stood on this issue for two reasons. One, Biden's stance on this issue is indicative of how he would handle similar issues presently. Two, his present defense of his past stance on this issue tells us how he would respond to criticism as commander in chief. So far, we know that Biden stood against the federal effort to desegregate American schools alongside people such as James Eastland, Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms. We also know that Biden still defends his efforts as the right thing to do. It's up to us as voters to decide what to do with that info.
35
@Greg -- In Florida and other states, the rise of charter schools and the expansion of private schools has created the same segregation that busing was meant to eliminate. I agree that all school districts should receive EQUAL amounts of funding, and Title 9 schools in poverty areas should receive additional funding/ or technology resources to offset districts that has generous PTA funding for all of the extras.
3
@Greg -- In Florida and other states, the rise of charter schools and the expansion of private schools has created the same segregation that busing was meant to eliminate. I agree that all school districts should receive EQUAL amounts of funding, and Title 9 schools in poverty areas should continue to receive additional funding/ or technology resources to supplement special needs and provide some of the extras that are provided by districts that have more generous PTA and corporate involvement.
@Greg -- In Florida and other states, the rise of charter schools and the expansion of private schools has created the same segregation that busing was meant to eliminate. I believe first of all that we need to more accurately teach the history of the USA that includes slavery and racism. But most importantly, all school districts should receive EQUAL amounts of funding throughout the state -- not based on distribution of local property tax money! Title 9 schools in poverty areas should continue to receive additional funding/ or technology resources to supplement special needs and provide some of the extras that are provided by districts that have more generous PTA and corporate involvement.
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I'm anti-busing, too! I do not believe children should have to get up at 4 AM to get to school by 8. Get home by 5 or 6 PM, eat dinner, do homework, go to bed. Only to get up nine hours later to start all over again.
ALL schools should provide equal quality education. ALL CHILDREN are entitled to a quality education. That means funding for ALL public schools should be equally disbursed. And, if that means "busing" teachers then that's what you need to do.
ALL CHILDREN deserve a quality education... and if they are not getting enough sleep or food to eat, that is not going to happen. The people who passed these laws didn't have to worry about their own children being bused. They went to private schools or lived in "better" neighborhoods. But equality starts on Day One. If you do not treat human beings with humanity, there will never BE a humane and dignified society. There can never be equality in society if there is not equal education opportunity. And that means equal funding.
So... while I support the underlying motivations, do I support busing? No. The goal is good and righteous. Just went about it the wrong way
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In the 1960s I did some of the first school integration research on busing black children from urban public schools to elite white suburban schools. Stresses on the black kids (travel time, hostility, overt racism, increased academic competition) were substantial, but worse was that the urban schools had not remotely prepared their students to compete at the same grade levels as their suburban peers.
Integration is a worthy goal, but:
1. Assuming that mixing black kids with white kids will somehow improve the black kids is insulting and demeaning.
2. Mixing students of very different academic abilities will force teachers in the elite schools to teach down to the lowest common denominators, which will short-change the better students.
3. Given the large performance gaps between elite and urban schools, the former will need to provide substantial counseling and tutoring services to help the incoming students try to catch up with the higher-performing students and to help under-prepared students cope with the stresses of a more demanding academic environment.
4. Parents of many students who are forced to attend low-performing schools will likely consider switching to private schools or relocating to the suburbs, thus reducing even further the number of white students in the school system.
The answer is not to try to spread the relatively small numbers and percentages of urban white students proportionally across all urban schools, but to improve ALL urban schools.
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It seems that there should be a candidate who can focus on the current needs of the day. Kamala Harris seems to be the best person win against trump and to lead the US.
No matter what he now says Mr. Biden will spend most of his time answering for the past and having people second guess his intentions on decisions required now and in the future.
The US needs to defeat trump. A candidate who can push forward is needed. Maybe Mr. Biden should bow out.
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@EC Why do you think Harris is the best person win against trump? Her poll vs trump is well behind Biden and her second debate with the busing issue exposed her as a ruthless opportunist. She was my second choice prior to the debate due to her diversity background, but I found she disgracefully and deceitfully playing race now and flip-floping the busing and many other issues. She is now crossed out of my list. Warren is now my second choice. Warren is much more capable and right-minded than Harris.
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The younger generations who did not experience the divisiveness of school busing cannot understand how fraught the issue was throughout the country. It is one reason America's education system is less than it should be today: because White parents afraid of their children's being bused to a school of lower standards in a Black neighborhood took their children out of the public school system and paid for tuition in all-white private schools, and subsequently voted against tax increases to improve the public school system. Voila! Inferior public schools and de facto segregation.
Unfortunately Biden carries too much baggage from that era along with his Anita Hill hearing performance and other VietNam to Iraq war era decisions. It is inevitable for anyone who wanted to be mainstream and not rock the boat. He should have retired gracefully and let a younger person without 20th Century baggage carry the torch for the Democrats. He will now suffer the effect of his hubris. And America will suffer a divisiveness in the Democratic Party that shouldn't have been. Seen from the outlook of a "Silent Generation" voter, Joe Biden is a spoiler rather than someone who will unite a majority of Americans.
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I trust the New York Times will do a equal investigations into all of the leading candidate's personal and political history.
Joe Biden is a devout Catholic whose position regarding abortion evolved to where he is now, and for many years, which is supporting a women right to choose. He has spoken eloquently and personally about coming to terms with a political reality and his personal faith. For many of the most liberal Catholics, supporting abortion rights are still a wrenching political decision. Joe Biden's record for protecting the rights of
others is well documented - he was an ardent supporter of marriage equality, (another challenge to his Catholic faith) and announced his support before President Obama. Is school busing on a ballot? Is there current legislation? Kamala Harris brought
this forward in the debate.. I wonder who her next target will be on July 30th?
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Just because of one moment of confrontation in the debates we get all this coverage about busing. Is this even relevant to today’s challenges? We have grown so much since then and we know so many better ways to improve education and racial acceptance. Why not discuss those. Democrats, the media, and the public do itself a disservice by hammering away at an old subject, especially when NO CANDIDATE HAS ENDORSED REIMPLEMENTING BUSING. Let’s stop this.
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The intent of busing was good but ...
Mr. Biden was right on busing. It was a nightmare.
Busing destroyed the education system in Nashville, TN.
Wealthy fled to the growing private schools, and the rest of our students were left to fend for themselves. Teachers were forced to deal with the conflicts between white and black, and sometimes against themselves. School discipline fell apart. The quality of education was greatly diminished. Even grade school (1-6) classes became impossible to manage. The good teachers left. Drugs came into the schools. The situation has not improved much. Heartbreaking.
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@sabilla2009 -
Memphis had the same issues. They had segregated schools in an integrated system and city. Now Memphis has segregated schools in a segregated system and the city is much more segregated than it was before busing.
So if you ask if busing was a success, the answer is 'no'. And busing made it much more difficult to integrate in the future as the black and white middle class moved out to the suburbs, either to their public schools or to private schools. Now it would be very difficult to integrate Memphis' schools. Before 1973, it was possible.
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I'm disappointed to have learned that Mr. Biden embraced essentially a state's rights argument.
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@The Buddy I'm disappointed to have learned that Kalama Harris exploited a controversial busing issue decades ago at the debate and later found her current stance on the busing is basically the same as Biden's decades ago.
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Yes let's make forced busing a plank in the Democratic Platform. All the elites will feel good and pure and it's a sure winner among average voters.
Right?
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Loss of local control, not racism, was a major issue for many of us who supported integration but not busing back in those days. Context is everything in the long haul of racial healing. Nuance matters. I’m with Biden on this one.
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If Joe Biden becomes President we will have an experienced leader with a calm demeanor and won't that be a change. He has a better understanding of the legislative process and has a decent track record of helping save the auto industry and with gun regulation.
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Busing schoolkids to achieve school integration will require transporting millions of minority kids from cities to the suburbs, and millions of white kids from the suburbs to urban schools.
Most urban minority parents are likely to approve of busing their kids to high-quality suburban schools. Most suburban white parents are highly unlikely to approve of busing their kids to low-quality urban schools.
During the TV debate Kamala Harris made a huge mistake when she suggested federally-mandated busing of schoolkids to and from cities and suburbs to achieve integration; if this is part of the Democratic Party in 2020 platform we are doomed to a second Trump term.
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this might be interesting. but it doesn't matter now. whatever he did or didn't will especially be seen in the light of the times then, and his record since, and especially the individual in the white house now.
back then he had to work with those individuals, and no body was perfect. even today, no body is perfect, although some are greatly worse.
since then biden has more than proven himself. not that he needed to.
and compared to trump, biden is a great relief.
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It was a long time ago, and I suppose it was well meant, but I suspect everyone, black, white, teachers, and students hated it. I'd've hated it.
Even if the result was worth it. It's like a lot of therapies that are uncomfortable, downright painful, and only put up with in hope the result will be worth it. I don't know the verdict on busing, or even if there is one. I do know that if Kamala Harris and her ilk keep on tearing at other democrats for 'impure pasts' they are going to get Donald Trump re-elected, and will be all undone and shocked when that happens.
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I am really tired of the media's obsession with Biden's views of busing in the 70s. If you didn't watch the Democratic debate, you'd think the only thing that happened there was an exchange between Harris and Biden about busing, because that's all the media talks about. It is becoming more and more obvious to me that the media interferes with elections by deciding what to focus on about a candidate - and going on about it endlessly, resulting in the voters focusing on it too, to the exclusion of all else. How about reporting all candidates' views on a variety of subjects? And can we move to the present, please?
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@Brandi
That's because the media LOVES Trump. I would like to see the number of paying subscribers to NYT, Washpo, etc before and after the 2016 elections.
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The focus of 2020 election should be Trump not identity politics and race.
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@Shim Please let’s not focus on Trump (for once). It’s probably good to lighten up on what some would consider “identity politics,” as that can trigger the emotions of Trump’s base.
So this wasn’t enough an issue to become Obama’s VP, but it is now?
Do Democrats even want to win? Appears now like they will once again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
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@Richard M. Well put, thank you. I strongly believe he is the only Democratic candidate that can beat Trump.
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He was right to do so, and should be proud of his actions to this day.
Children are not pawns to be moved around to satisfy someone's idea of social engineering. They should not be forced to attend schools far from home in an often hostile environment; readers' comments on earlier articles have described the hostility, often descending into physical violence, they encountered. School assignments should not be based on skin color; nothing should be; that is the meaning of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Busing destroys support for the public schools as it undermines their educational function..
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@Jonathan Katz: Amen to that.
I've only seen references to white on black racial violence in the NYT OP-ED pieces regarding forced busing.
Not one mention of racial violence going in any other direction.
Not one.
There have been references to this in some comments.
Why should the NYT address it? Because it was real part of force busing and without acknowledging it and addressing it there will be no real progress on racial integration this country.
Biden was right. And there's not dog whistle or Southern Strategy to it.
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@Jonathan Katz....Your comment fits in very well with the constant rationalizations we get from Biden.
What's the obvious example of social engineering? Segregated schools. Children were used as pawns to maintain the white supremacy system.
They were forced to attend schools based on their skin color.
The cooperation in this by elected officials inspired the public violence after integration was finally started, after the Court finally made a decision in line with our Constitution.
Much of the white public had been conditioned to think that going to school with blacks, inherently inferior, was a great insult to them. Our govt had supported that idea for many generations.
If govts had started to budget tax money to improve black schools to levels of white schools, then the whites would have strongly opposed this. Most white officials wouldn't even have suggested it. There was no way out.
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@Jonathan Katz This is nonsense. Solid facts prove otherwise. American public schools in the North are if anything *more* segregated now than back when segregation was legal! That is because of Joe Biden's successful campaign against busing. The reason busing failed in Boston was because the suburbs were left out, so busing pitted the black ghettoes against the almost as poor Irish ghetto of South Boston. If you believe in integration, you have to believe in busing to the suburbs. Without that, the suburban schools will always be vastly better than inner city schools, and, quite simply, white people will always get a much better education than nonwhites in America. The white suburbanites don't like it? Tough. You either oppose white supremacy or you don't.
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The modern science of political anthropology - examining the distant past of politicians' careers, dissecting every decision and vote, may give us more insight into their character.
It also disadvantages candidates with the most political experience - at the expense of the both the candidate and the public.
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This article is very well done. Well-researched, well-written, informative and even-handed. That said, the candidates themselves need to move on from the topic of busing. The sooner, the better.
Every candidate should stay laser-focused on the issues that swing state voters care about the most: wages, healthcare, immigration, and education. Kitchen table issues. Voters need to believe those are your highest priorities. Every minute you spend discussing the 1970s is a minute you aren't spending on the here-and-now.
Racial equity is still a critically important issue that must not and should not be ignored. But, there are better ways to address it than focusing on who-said-what about busing back in the 1970s. Stay locked into the present and the future. Tell us your plans about how to make the world fairer and more inclusive going forward. Unless busing is a component of your future plans, no reason to discuss it further.
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Kamala Harris was asked after the debate if she supported federally mandated school busing. Her campaign said no.
The debate moment between her and Biden was a nice sound bite for her campaign, but she was being completely disingenuous.
Every democratic candidate agrees that improving education for minorities and decreasing the harmful effects of segregation is the goal, but reasonable people can disagree as to whether mandatory busing programs are at all effective in achieving that goal.
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@Jeff Busing schoolkids to achieve school integration will require transporting millions of minority kids from cities to the suburbs, and millions of white kids from the suburbs to urban schools.
Most urban minority parents are likely to approve of busing their kids to high-quality suburban schools. Most suburban white parents are highly unlikely to approve of busing their kids to low-quality urban schools.
During the TV debate Kamala Harris made a huge mistake when she suggested federally-mandated busing of schoolkids to and from cities and suburbs to achieve integration; if this is part of the Democratic Party in 2020 platform we are doomed to a second Trump term.
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@Mon Ray Actually, historically, most black parents haven't been in favor of mandatory busing of their children to far off neighborhoods. As a parent, I can understand why they wouldn't their children spending hours each week to be busessed to a school far from my home.
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While not ideal, what other options are there to fix the problems of segregation in the _short term_?
Might having suburban parents unhappy with the conditions at urban schools be one of the quickest and most effective ways of improving those schools for all students?
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I love the op ed bashing the democratic front runner, the likely one who could beat Trump. It has selected many portions of many conversations over the course of 10 or 15 years, the 60s and 70s, to fit a narrative to Joe Biden that is not exactly true. It's easy to sum up 10 years of history in 2000 words. I like Joe for his experience. Many of these experiences he had has made him into a more qualified candidate. Is there another democratic candidate that has been VICE president? Democrats need to cool their critique of Biden. They are being picky and spoiled by picking Biden apart when he is needed most. Don't forget that while this article says "softening polilatity" amongst dems that actually Biden still leads by some 20 points over the second most popular candidate.
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Why cool the critique? Have debate, have dialogue. Who says if he is going to beat Trump? HRC certainly did not. Why would the next corporate candidate succeed? Now is the time to be critical. If a candidate can’t survive these debates than what makes you think (s)he could survice the general.
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@Jon It's amazing how so many Dems take this position, that because Biden leads the race, and Trump is president, we shouldn't report on history, we shouldn't analyze policies, we shouldn't judge a person who may become the most powerful on earth. In other words, because of Trump, Democrats should not have standards, or foster beliefs, or have debates, or....talk about things that have happened and what they mean. This is Trump winning our culture, and capturing the minds of Democrats.
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@Jon
The NY Times knows how to pick and choose quotes from the past that support their agenda.
It would appear Joe Biden is not their favorite while the way they wrote the Elizabeth Warren biography was sickeningly glowing.
Busing was not only unpopular but it failed to achieve "integration." Rather, it led to white flight either to private schools or to white families moving to suburbs or to other towns. As a result, urban schools are in the state that they are in - segregated and struggling.
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Thank you for this. I think the authors bent over backward to be fair to Joe Biden, letting his record speak for itself.
Now I would like to see something similar about his earlier statements about opposing women's access to abortion.
Biden's earlier comments that abortion is neither a choice nor a right, and that a woman shouldn’t have the “sole right to say what should happen to her body,” needs to be illustrated in a similar fashion.
Biden appears to have bent to political pressure when it came to busing -- not a necessarily attractive feature when it comes to protecting the civil rights of others -- but his opposition to women's decision making about their own bodies seems to be even more deep seated, given his oft-cited religious beliefs.
Thank you for giving voters the information they need to make better informed decisions about the future of our country, particularly those of us interested in protecting the rights of all Americans, not just those in power.
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@avrds Thomas Edison made more mistakes creating the first light bulb than I ever did, because I never tried. Experienced people experience mistakes and grow from them. Joe Biden wrote the Violence Against Women Act and had a long history of successes. Perhaps you and voters in general look at the successes our candidates have had.
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All this wasn’t an issue for you when he was running for VP?
Do you think he’s racist? Yes or no.
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I have a slightly different take. Biden opposed court mandated forced bussing, which was very unpopular at the time, and which is quite different from the voluntary bussing Kamala Harris participated in as a youth. I suspect Harris knows the distinction and also knows that, all these years later, many people would not. Biden was right at the time and he should make no apologies for it.
He is also a practicing Catholic who believes the unborn baby also has rights which should not be ignored. Many would argue that Life is the truly Progressive position, while abortion is retrograde, an act if violence similar to eugenics.
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